What's better than a hot dog?

The answer my friends is a hot dog wrapped in bacon, flash fried and served with chili and coleslaw- unless you're talking from an artery perspective in which case the answer is an apple, a banana, or really almost anything. In case you don't know, I love hot dogs. I say "in case you don't know" because you probably actually don't know* since Paige refuses to eat them or let me eat them. Naturally when our friend Anna mentioned "gourmet" hot dogs served up at Crif-Dog's here in NYC and Paige didn't instantly say no, I suggested we go immediately. It was everything I'd imagined and more.

Since Paige and I arrived in New York City, we've enjoyed tasting the expansive culinary offerings of this, the food capital of the country. Since we've been in "the big apple" we've sampled vietnamese sandwiches, local burgers (at shake shack), fresh bagels, Sri Lankan food, jumbo slice pizza, milk shakes from the "Seinfeld" diner, all-you-can-drink sangria brunch, street fruit, fancy french food, dumplings, and yes, the aforementioned bacon wrapped crif-dogs. If we are able to squeeze into our pants by the time we leave this city, it will be a true miracle.

Aside from the all out gorging, we've managed to see quite a bit of the city. Friday we enjoyed finally having good weather and walked around the city for the better part of the day before we settled down at a sports bar to watch the first rounds of March Madness with Anna's boyfriend Dan. By ten o'clock we were exhausted and crashed at Andrea Lee's who was nice enough to offer up her apartment to us for the weekend. We spent all day Saturday wandering around Central Park with Anna before we went back to the park for a run with Dan. That evening we had our first experience with Sri Lankan food courtesy of Andrea. Needless to say, the spicy food caused significant sweating on my part, but was well worth the pain. Since I was already sweating, we decided to meet up with Anna and go dancing. We finished up the night with Dan's tour of his neighborhood's late night food. Sunday we walked around Harlem, stopped in at the Natural History Muesum (the best I've ever seen) and then had a lazy, boozy brunch near the park with Andrea Lee and her boy toy, Ben.

Since Sunday afternoon we have been enjoying the hilarious company of Anna and Dan. Anna is probably the funniest landscape architect in all of New York. Dan tells jokes similar to the ones I tell. Naturally Dan is the funnier of the two. We are staying in their spare bedroom for the rest of the week and are looking forward to enjoying their comedy show in the days to come.

Since it is getting late and we have a big day tomorrow, I'm going to have to sign off for now. I'll have to catch you all the way up to speed later.

*Christy and Tommy do know this since they witnessed me eat 18 free hot dogs after a long bike ride....ok, just after a short bike ride